Hanami

Walking onto the university campus after lunch today, I found myself immersed in an unexpectedly large crowd.  The university is between terms, and this was a larger crowd than I see on class days during term.  It was a larger crowd than I see on football days, when the campus is inundated by elderly men and women in purple and gold sweatshirts.

What brought everyone onto campus, two days before Spring Quarter, on a sunny weekend Saturday?

My photo gives it away.  The sun was bright, the sky was blue … and the cherry trees were in full blossom.  They draw crowds every year at this time, and the crowds this year seemed larger than ever. 

And more diverse.  As I wandered amongst large families -- many just standing and staring and photographing, others walking about and bumping into each other as they looked upward, eyes wide at the beauty before them -- I was amazed at the many languages I heard about me, and the obvious cultural differences among the viewers.  Seattle, once a city of Scandinavians, has become a far more cosmopolitan burg in the past few decades.  Thank Microsoft.  Thank Amazon.  And thank our location on the Pacific Rim.

Cherry trees are scattered about the campus, but the main concentration of both trees and spectators today are and were within the Upper Quad.  The Quad itself is a large rectangular space surrounded by eight buildings built in College Gothic style.  The thirty trees planted along the sidewalks within the Quad are Yoshino cherry trees.  They were purchased in 1939, and originally planted in the Arboretum, near my house. They were transplanted to the Upper Quad in 1962, when what is now State Route 520 was built across their corner of the Arboretum.

Ever since I remember, we have been hearing dire warnings that they have nearly reached their life expectancy and will soon have to be cut down and replaced.  "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," as the man said, and they remain attractive all year long, and absolutely overwhelming when in blossom.

When I mentioned today's crowds in a note on Facebook, a Japanese-American friend remarked that I was witnessing an American version of hanami.  My Japanese being somewhat weak, I had to look it up.  Hanami (花見) is the Japanese custom of "enjoying the transient beauty of flowers," which in Japan usually means cherry blossoms.  Unlike our unstructured gawking, in Japan the blossom-viewing is accompanied by large parties with much food, parties that go on long into the night.  Wikipedia suggests that the Japanese proverb "dumplings rather than flowers" suggests the real priorities of many of the party goers.

I prefer to consider the Japanese as more ethereal and sensitive than ourselves, however, walking quietly and reverently beneath their trees.  Perhaps, twirling parasols?  I've watched Madame Butterfly too many times, I suppose, and visited Japan not at all.

Anyway, today was Seattle's hanami, under beautiful spring skies, and it was worth the stroll across campus.

High above Sonoma's vineyards

View from my sister's deck

For one full week, my faithful readers -- eagerly turning to their favorite blog -- have been confronted with the same sad memorial honoring my late, lamented cat Muldoon.  Is their no cheer in the Northwest Corner, they must be asking?  Must we mourn Muldoon forever?

Well, no cheer in the soul of its author, perhaps.  But one's professional duties call me to move on.

Polled vines and
wild flowers

Actually, I have spent most of this past week in Sonoma, California -- once a family center, but since abandoned as relatives have departed one by one for such far flung residences as Chiang Mai, Thailand, and -- even more far flung in spirit -- Challis, Idaho.  But my sister is recovering from knee surgery and, like an injured pet limping back to the family home to recuperate, is holed up in the countryside just outside Sonoma.

As I suggest, I have visited Sonoma on many occasions.  But until this past week, I'd never taken a certain small road off a major highway that passes through Sonoma, and climbed with that road into the surrounding hills.  My sister, relying on the kindness of good friends, has been recovering at the very top of this road, a road that leads through breathtaking scenery, winding sharply and always upward through planted vineyards and unplanted hills covered with forest and scrub. 

Vineyards seen from deck

In the summer, I suppose, these hills are brown.  But in late March, they are emerald green.  My first drive up the road -- which to prevent a deluge of tourists shall remain nameless -- was through light fog, and I was reminded of the moors of Scotland.  The next day was sunny, which brought forth a different beauty.  And in all weather, the road suddenly comes upon fields of trimmed-back grapevines, dormant and awaiting their spring growth.

If my sister had to recover from surgery, she found the ideal place to do so.  And as for me, I was able to enjoy great beauty and a sense of splendid isolation within twenty minutes of downtown Sonoma, without the need of having gone myself under the knife.

In Memoriam

Muldoon

Shy and cautious.
One friend was all he wanted,
All he needed.

2004-2019

 

Saying goodbye

Muldoon, last night

Euthanasia is scheduled for my cat Muldoon at 3 p.m. this afternoon. 

Wednesday's ultrasound showed lymphoma infiltrating lymph nodes throughout the abdomen, with one kidney being badly swollen; atypically for cats the intestines were not affected which actually worsens the prognosis.  A treatment option was aggressive chemotherapy.  The percentage chance that chemo would result in remission and the length of time such a remission could be expected to last, together with the cat's need to receive daily doses and weekly office visits, resulted in my decision to put him to sleep now, while he's still reasonably comfortable and not irritated by being constantly medicated.

It's not been an easy decision to make, and a sense of guilt urged me to try every modality possible until death seemed imminent.  I've been encouraged by comments from a lot of friends telling me of their own experiences, and assuring me that this is the right decision.

I had visions of spending our last day together chatting over old times, but he's asleep.  He's been quite apathetic and asocial the last few days, but he surprised me last night by continuing his nightly ritual of joining me while I read in bed, and by curling up on my lap, purring, for a half hour earlier this morning.

Muldoon has been a great friend and companion for the past fourteen and a half years.  His constant presence will be missed more than I can describe. 

Duodecennial

Tempus fugit!  Twelve years ago today I published my first post on this spanking new blog.  A photo of me sitting on a haystack, contemplating the absurdity of life outside the Northwest Corner.  (Ironically, that haystack on which I perched was somewhere in central France.)

By the end of March, 2007, I had already published five more posts -- denouncing the Bush Administration; quoting with admiration the words of Bertrand Russell; contemplating the possibility of extraterrestrial life; questioning what it takes to make one happy; and praising the joys of procrastination.

Sometime before the end of that same month, I went skiing with family members at Lake Tahoe, and found the idea of my being a Blogster already the object of good natured ridicule.  I gather folks viewed it as they would a photo of William F. Buckley out hang-gliding.  It didn't seem in character.

Nothing much has changed in the dozen years since.  Same odd mix of odd topics.  Frequent movie and book reviews, a feature that became well established that first year. 

Each year on this anniversary, I feel compelled to mark the date as I'm doing today.  And, part of my custom is to comment on the prior year's accomplishments.

Let me just say that the calendar year 2018 set a new, all-time record -- a personal best -- for number of posts.  To wit, 110.  Beating the old record of 108 that I set just the year before.  Whether the quality of my blog also was an all-time best is a subjective judgment that I leave to you, my readers.

It's difficult to choose the most "popular" posts of the year, because readership seems fairly evenly divided among them. But combining raw numbers with my own judgments of quality, I would say that the top choice of the year was a review of a book few of us had ever heard of -- Report from a Parisian Paradise by Joseph Roth -- a Jewish journalist from Austria writing from France for a German newspaper during the years leading up to World War II. 

Other popular posts discussed (with photographic evidence) my Christmas in rural Idaho; my ten years of meetings for drinks with one-time fellow employees; a review of the Ingmar Bergman movie Winter Light; reviews of books I'd read about climbing in the Italian Alps and about British rule in India around 1800; and a review of a first novel by the Hollywood writer who later wrote The Princess Bride.

This winter, like last winter, saw a spate of reviews of Ingmar Bergman films, resulting from a continuing film series offered by the Seattle Art Museum. If SAM continues the series another year -- there remain another 25 or 30 films Bergman still to be shown -- you can expect more of the same next winter.

It's been a good year, and an enjoyable year.  I plan to still be writing a year from now, when I reach my thirteenth anniversary.

Muldoon ailing

On Wednesday, March 21, 2018, an ultrasound exam revealed that my cat Loki had an incurable colon cancer.  He spent 17 more days with me, most of them happy, before I bowed to the inevitable and had him put to sleep.

On Wednesday, March 20, 2019, fifty-two weeks to the day, my remaining cat Muldoon will be given a similar examination.  An x-ray on Saturday has already revealed a tumor in or near the small intestine, and an enlarged kidney, possibly enlarged because of a second tumor.  The ultrasound is to determine the exact nature of the tumors, and whether either chemotherapy or surgery would give Muldoon any significant increase of enjoyable lifespan.

I pretty much know the answer, but it's worth a shot.

As I discussed a little over a month ago -- when he seemed totally healthy, although the tumors were already growing -- Muldoon's personality blossomed after his step-brother passed away.  From being the timid cat in the family, he became the only son.  He became increasingly adventuresome, and openly affectionate.  Over this past year, he and I have spent many happy evenings together, each ending when he reminded me it was time for bed -- lurking at the bottom of the stairs, or preceding me upstairs to the bedroom.

He is a black and white cat, a combination the veterinarian describes as "tuxedo."  I adopted him at the same time as Loki.  Loki was still a kitten at adoption, but Muldoon was maybe five or six months old.  He is coming up on his fifteenth birthday, a birthday with an unknown date that he probably won't be around to celebrate even if we knew when it was.

As I lamented in my blog on March 15, 2018,

Those of you who don't live with a pet, or whose pet is on the periphery of your daily life, won't grasp how emotionally taxing the decision to end a cat's life can be.

At least then, I had a spare cat in reserve.  Now, I contemplate a large, quiet, empty house.

At least I can take the protective covers off my furniture.  Muldoon's claws will claw no more.   That is scant consolation.

B Minor Mass

Seattle Symphony and Chorale
Bach's B Minor Mass

Somewhere, I read that a life has not been fully lived until one has listened to Bach's Mass in B Minor.

Perhaps an exaggeration, but last night, the Seattle Symphony, together with its Chorale, made the claim seem plausible.

The conductor, Ludovic Morlot, chose to present the Mass using a smaller than typical orchestra, to approximate -- with modern instruments -- the orchestra for which Bach himself would have written.  As he hoped, this allowed the audience to follow the orchestra's counterpoint, as well to appreciate the occasional obbligato instrument accompanying the chorus, more easily than is possible with a full orchestra -- where you tend to be overwhelmed by the massed sound.

The program notes contained an unusually helpful description of the historical and religious background of the composition.  The B Minor Mass was to some extent a pastiche of smaller works that Bach had composed over the years.  For a Protestant composer writing for a Protestant court in the mid-18th century, it was somewhat daring to present -- in Latin -- portions of the Catholic liturgy.

Actually, however, I see nothing in the five selections from the Mass -- those most often put to music -- that would have offended Protestant sensibilities.  The Kyrie and the Gloria had already been adopted by Luther into his church's liturgy.  The other three movements -- the Credo, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei, came before and after the central, and most controversial, portion of the Mass, the Consecration.

I've never particularly cared for sung masses as a form of religious service.  Especially when the singing is fugal and contrapuntal, it's impossible to follow the language.  The music becomes a performance, and not a prayer.  And that's one reason that, by Bach's time, both Protestants and Catholics had tried to simplify the music that was used as part of church services. 

For example, the Kyrie contains six Greek words:  Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison [Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy].  In a spoken mass, those words are said in about five seconds.  In a mass as sung in today's Catholic churches, they may take a minute.  Bach's Kyrie takes eighteen minutes. 

In a Sunday service, after eighteen minutes, even the most devout mind might tend to wander.  But as a musical performance, combining voice and orchestra, the experience is sublime.

In last night's performance, especially dramatic was the playing of the first oboe in several obbligatos, and even more that of the flute in a virtual duet with the mezzo-soprano singer in the Agnus Dei.  Somehow, the flute and flautists always seem to end up the butt of jokes, or even disrespect, from clowns like myself.  Last night's performance showed what a solo flute is capable of.

Great composition, beautiful playing and singing.  And a very enjoyable evening.

Fanny and Alexander

Although he directed several later productions for television, Fanny and Alexander (1982) was the last film Ingmar Bergman directed for theatrical release, and it was the final film shown in this year's Bergman film festival at the Seattle Art Museum.   It's interesting to note that Fanny and Alexander was originally intended for release as a five-hour television mini-series in Sweden.   The work was cut to three hours for theater viewing, but has also been shown in theaters in its original five-hour length.

I last saw the film at the time of its original release.  My memory was of a warm, Swedish family drama, centered around a beautiful and often funny Christmas party.  That aspect is there, of course, especially in the early scenes.  The beauty and richness of the family's Christmas decorations have been copied, reportedly, by Swedes ever since the movie was first seen.

But the film I saw last night was a stranger, harsher, and more frightening film than the Fanny and Alexander of my memories.

Even during the lushly beautiful and joyous Christmas celebrations, it was clear that the joy was unalloyed only for the children.  The adults brought their own worries and arguments and problems in life to the party. 

The film begins in the year 1907 in Uppsala, Sweden, at the home of Alexander's and Fanny's parents -- a home in which live many of their relatives on both sides of the family.  The home is huge and it is beautiful.  Although the children's parents are involved in theater, somewhere they have apparently managed to accumulate a large amount of money. 

Alexander, through whose eyes and consciousness most of the plot is viewed, is twelve, and his sister Fanny is perhaps three years younger.   The previously inexperienced actor who plays Alexander was asked years later how he was cast in the role, and he replied:  "I asked Ingmar later why he chose me. He said it was because I acted with my eyes".  Understandable.  The boy shows remarkable poise and intensity, speaking not only with his eyes but with his entire face.  (The actor did not pursue an acting career; he earned his Ph.D. and is today an engineer, working in Stockholm at the Royal Institute of Technology.)

Trouble enters Alexander's world after his father dies and his mother marries a Lutheran bishop.  The bishop, who at first seems kind and charming, gently but firmly chiding Alexander for a fabrication he had told his schoolmates about running off and joining the circus, shows his true colors following marriage.  His bride and her two children are moved from their sumptuous house to his spartan bishop's residence, surrounded by his own somewhat ghoulish relatives.  The children are locked in their room whenever their mother leaves the house. 

Alexander, whose imagination obviously suggests that of Bergman himself, tells a maid that he had met the ghosts of the bishop's prior wife and children, and had been told that the bishop had been responsible for their deaths.  The bishop is infuriated, and threatens Alexander with extreme punishments if he does not confess and repent.  Alexander coolly stares the bishop in the eye and refuses.  But he ultimately backs down, is congratulated for confessing like a man, and is then subjected to a severe caning.  It's a difficult scene to watch.

By this time, the bishop has refused Alexander's mother a divorce.  Under Swedish law, if she leaves without his consent, he retains custody of her children.  The children escape, by the help of Isak Jacobi, a Jewish family friend, a puppet-maker, and they hide out at his rambling and mysterious house and workshop.  In one of the odder scenes of the film, Alexander meets Ismael, a young man who is kept confined behind locked doors because he is "dangerous."  Ismael is a beardless youth with a voice like a child's -- acted by a woman -- who reads Alexander's mind and tells him that he, Alexander, hates someone with murderous intent.  Alexander has a vision of the bishop's being consumed by fire.

At the time of this vision, events conspire to actually start a fire at the bishop's residence, and he is burned to death.

The family and children are all happily re-united.  Until Alexander is knocked to the floor in an empty hall by the ghost of the bishop.  The bishop tells Alexander that he will never escape him.  Never.

Alexander runs to his mother's arms and curls up next to her.

Is Fanny and Alexander a ghost story?   A tale of the supernatural?   Throughout the movie, not only Alexander but other members of the family had received visitations from the ghost of the deceased father, who had each time sadly expressed concern for his children's fate.  Some of Alexander's visions might be attributed to his talent for imagination, or to his mistaken memory of the past.  But not all the ghostly appearances were in Alexander's presence.

The children's parents were actors, and references to Hamlet crop up repeatedly.  The mother quotes Hamlet to Alexander, knowing full well that her 12-year-old son would understand the references.  All the family members would be well acquainted with Hamlet's words of warning to a pedantic rationalist:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

At a happy family dinner, following the bishop's death, Alexander's most ebullient uncle sums up his view of life:

The world is a den of thieves, and night is falling. Evil breaks its chains and runs through the world like a mad dog. The poison affects us all. No one escapes. Therefore let us be happy while we are happy. Let us be kind, generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world.

Maybe we are all alone in the universe, he suggests.  Or maybe we are surrounded by spirits of the dead.  Maybe we are protected by angels or besieged by devils.  Those are big questions for brilliant people in the "great world" to think about.

Let us just be happy at times like this dinner, he would say, in our "little world," knowing that happiness doesn't last forever, but can be wonderful while we still have it.

And on that note, Bergman's career more or less comes to a close.

Beto

Last November, shortly after the election, I received an email from a name I barely recognized.  It began:

Amy is watching Last of the Mohicans in the other room with the kids. We started it last night after Ulysses’ basketball game. Pizza, carrots, Mohicans and then early to bed.

This morning, before everyone got up, I went on a run with Artemis and then made breakfast. Scones, German pancakes, bacon, eggs, and some bread that Jim and Christine brought by last night with butter and jam on it. Some coffee from beans that a friend in Austin sent to us last week. It’s not Whataburger, but...

After breakfast, we went on a hike in the Franklins with friends and dogs. Glorious morning in El Paso, crisp and clear, you can see for miles at the top of Crazy Cat.

Listening to the war cries and shots firing from the TV speaker in the other room, I’m smiling because we are all together again. Doing something -- just hanging out, just being around, just being -- that I haven’t done in almost two years.

Who is this guy, I wondered?  The email was from a guy named Beto O'Rourke.  A name I just barely remembered from the election.  I knew that Ted Cruz had hung on for a very close win to his Senate seat, but I hadn't really paid much attention to the guy who'd almost beaten him.

But what a great guy this Beto sounds like, I told myself.  When once asked why he named his kid "Ulysses," he replied that they hadn't had the nerve to name him "Odysseus."  His dog's name is Artemis, for god's sake. 

Yeah, a great guy.  Or, more cynically, I think, what a great public relations staff he has!  

And now, he's running for president. And asking for my "friendship."  And perhaps a few dollars?

It feels like another Jack Kennedy or Barack Obama moment.  A guy with a photogenic face and a likeable personality.  A guy who generates ecstatic support from certain portions of the population.  Is he the guy to beat The Donald?  The Donald has already attacked the manner in which Beto gestures with his hands, suggesting that he looks like he may be "crazy."  Classic Donald. Classy Donald.

I don't know.  I wish I knew what the country wanted, what it's looking for.  In his letter yesterday, telling us of his decision to run, Beto said all the right things.  Liberal, but not wacko.  Positive campaign.  Pride in country, but not weirdly nationalist.  Drawing people from all walks of life together.  In last year's Texas campaign, "I saw firsthand how the purpose and function that we all crave can be found in serving others and serving this country."

Talk's easy, of course.  The questions I have are about his lack of experience.  We've had two years of a president who, whether you like his politics or not, you have to admit has shown a lack of ability to deal with other politicians, to understand issues, to understand how government works and how to unite a majority of the country behind him.

Beto O'Rourk is in many ways the un-Trump.  But he shares with Trump a lack of political experience.  That concerns me.  He also has been wandering about the country since his November defeat, trying to "find himself," to figure out what he wants out of life.  Viewing him as an individual, I find that very attractive.  But should I consider it a pro or a con in the personality of a guy who would be our president?

I don't know.  I'm interested in him.  He's a different brand of politician from the other possible candidates.  Is that difference a positive?  And he's a white male.  Is 2020 they year when the electorate turns against white males?

We have a year before the first primaries.  That's good.  It gives plenty of time to evaluate not only Beto, but many of the others who are seeking the Democratic nomination.

In his third email to me today (!) he asks for $5 to get his campaign fund growing.  I can afford five bucks, just to keep my foot in the door.  In case I someday want an ambassadorship under an O'Rourke administration.

Green Lake rambling

"The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la."
--The Mikado

Three weeks ago, I was still trudging through the snow in hiking boots, bravely exploring the winter wonderland of the Arboretum.  Yesterday, I joined the throngs tripping lightly through the budding flowers of spring (tra la) in Green Lake Park.  Hoping that they offered promise "of a summer of roses and wine."  (Tra la)

The weather remained rather chilly, actually, as it is again today, but the sun was out, the sky was blue (there was not a cloud to spoil the view).  The walk around the lake, about three miles, always draws a nice weekend crowd in the summer, but rarely so many as were out yesterday.

Seattle walkers were unable to decide exactly what season we had attained.  Many were wearing the same ski parkas that they wore while making snow men three weeks ago.  Others --  usually runners rather than walkers -- were out in shorts and t-shirts.  I compromised, wearing jeans and a fleece layer.

They came in all ages, shapes, and sizes  -- young kids on small bikes, babies in strollers, lovers holding hands, men arguing politics or finance, young women "power walkers," flocks of teenagers chattering excitedly, grandmothers (some walking briskly, some slowly with canes).

And me.

I had started out walking from my house to the UW, felt ambitious and walked past the university all the way to Green Lake, and then circumnavigated the lake.  I even then still felt ambitious, but felt that caution was warranted so early in the season.  I took the bus back to Husky Stadium, and then walked the final mile back to my house.  Total miles walked was 8.1, according to my iPhone, which is a fair distance for a hike that began with much less ambition in mind.

I wish I could say that the flowers were in bloom (tra la), but our late season snow delayed what had promised to be an early spring.  There were crocuses, there were primroses, and there were some brave daffodils.  Other species will soon be forthcoming, but had not yet come forth.

The trees were still gaunt and leafless.

But the sun felt warm, when I wasn't in the shade, and everyone looked happy.  We didn't merrily dance and sing (tra la), although we wanted to -- we are Scandinavians up in these parts, after all.

But we did venture tentative smiles at each other as we passed.  Then looked away quickly, lest we be misunderstood.

Autumn Sonata

The similarity between the names Ingmar Bergman and Ingrid Bergman used to confuse me, especially as my eyes flitted over a headline.  Last night, I had the opportunity to see the two come together in one magnificent movie -- Autumn Sonata (1978) -- with Ingmar, of course, as director and Ingrid as one of the two lead actors.

In most of Bergman's films that I've watched, much of his plot is conveyed by long periods of silence.  In Autumn Sonata, there is little silence.  Instead, there are long conversations -- often competing monologues -- by Ingrid Bergman and Liz Ullman.  Both offer stunningly virtuoso performances.

Ullman plays Eva, the plain-faced wife of a Norwegian pastor living in a beautiful rural home.  Eva and her husband invite Eva's mother Charlotte to visit, following the death of her mother's husband or long-time companion Leonardo.  Eva has not seen her mother -- an aging but still-glamorous, world-renowned concert pianist --for seven years.

After a joyful greeting between the two, with her mother declaring her intent to stay "forever," things begin immediately to go wrong.  Eva mentions that she still plays occasionally for her local church group, to their acclaim.  Her mother asks her to play the Chopin prelude whose sheet music is on the piano.  Eva hesitates, but does so.  The mother says that the technique and fingering need improvement, but the main problem is with the interpretation.  Chopin was agitated at this time of his life, but he was "manly."  The piece shouldn't be played as a reverie, but should display the pain Chopin felt.  Charlotte plays her own interpretation, which she mentions was well-received when she played it with the Los Angeles Symphony.

Eva wilts.

The two talk.  Charlotte had never come to see the couple's beloved young son Erik, who died when he was four.  Nor had she visited her younger daughter, Helena, Eva's sister, who suffers from a severe degenerative disease that now prevents her from walking or speaking in a way that anyone other than Eva can understand.  In fact, Charlotte is horrified that Helena is in the house under Eva's care, and that she will have to speak with her.

Charlotte manages the meeting with Helena well, showing every sign of being a loving mother.  Helena's love for her mother is obvious.  This is the first of many instances where Charlotte shows that she is and always has been a good actor -- but Eva says that one of the horrors of her childhood was discovering that the way her mother looked and talked was always a lie.  Her expressions had no relationship to how she really felt.

The film reaches a climax one evening after Eva has had a few glasses of wine and spills out the resentments of a life time.  She had desperately loved her mother and sought her approval, but her mother was always leaving on tour.  When Charlotte did finally decide to stay home and get to know her teenaged daughter better, she took on Eva as a "project."  She was going to improve not only Eva's piano skills, but every aspect of her life.

You said my hair was too long and you had it cut short, it was hideous! Then you thought that I had crooked teeth, and you got me braces, I looked so grotesque! You would buy me books and I would read them and not understand them, and you would make me talk about them, and I would always be afraid that you would show up my stupidity.

Her mother defended herself -- she had suffered constant back pain; she had responsibilities as a musician that took her away from home; she simply wanted to help Eva grow up.  Eva responded, pointing out the many times that Charlotte had left her and Helena before the time originally scheduled, as though she couldn't wait to get away from them.  Time after time, Eva was stung by her mother's rejection, rejected because she wasn't good enough.  She had grown up staring at herself in the mirror, hating what she saw.

But one thing I did understand: not a shred of the real me could be loved or accepted. I didn't dare to be myself even when I was alone because I hated what was my own.

All that was sensitive and delicate, you attacked. All that was alive, you tried to smother.

Eva now feels crippled emotionally -- she can't even believe in the reality of her own husband's love. 

She wonders if every injured mother passes on her own injured nature to her daughter.  

Helena has heard the argument and has dragged herself from her bed to the edge of the room, calling as best she can, "Mama!  Mama!"  No one hears her.

Shattered and alone in her room, Charlotte wonders in a soliloquy:

I'm seized by fear and see a horrible picture of myself. I have never grown up. My face and my body have aged. I acquire memories and experiences but inside all that I haven't even been born. I can't remember any faces not even my own.

In less talented hands -- both directorial and acting -- this drama might have come off as a soap opera.  But it does not.  The camera searches deeply into the soul of each woman as she speaks, their faces saying even more than the their words how badly each has been injured, and how much each had wanted to love the other.

Anyone out there?

"WE ARE NOT ALONE"

So proclaims the cover of this month's National Geographic, the words emblazoned against a dark and starry sky.

Oh yes, I cried to myself.  Finally!  All my science fiction dreams come true! 

Obviously, we hadn't already made contact, or we would have read the headlines in the daily papers, even before discussions of the president's latest outrage.  But some proof has been discovered, I concluded, and the question is not whether we have fellow sentient beings, but how soon we shall meet up.

Alas. 

Don't get me wrong.  The article is well worth reading. It brings us up to date on the latest telescopic and other data-sensing equipment.  And we learn that astronomers have now confirmed the existence of about four thousand planets outside our own solar system.  And that's just the beginning.  So far, scientists have ascertained statistically that there are more planets than there are stars, and that at least a fourth of them are potentially suitable for life as we know it on earth. 

Since there are between 100,000 and 400,000 stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy, we are looking at some 25,000 to 100,000 earth-like planets relatively (!!) near at hand.  Moreover, since the observable universe is estimated to contain up to two trillion galaxies -- well, we have a lot of planets to check out.  (And forget the fact that some scientists believe that there are nearly an infinite number of universes.  Since it would seem impossible to move from our universe to another -- even though each may be in a sense a fraction of an inch away   -- we can disregard whatever goes on, or doesn't go on, in those other universes.)

So the evidence marshalled to support the article's headline is really the same as we've heard all along -- what are the odds that not one of those trillions of planets has never evolved life?  And if they have evolved life, how can we believe that some of  them, logically, would not sustain civilizations billions of years more advanced than ours?  So advanced that they haven't tried to communicate with us any more than we try to communicate with an anthill as we walk past it in the forest.  The article does concede in conclusion:

Still, space is vast , and so is time.  Even with our ever more powerful computers and telescopes, SETI's expanded agenda, and the gravity assist of a hundred Yuri Milners, we may never encounter an alien intelligence.

But the authors suspect otherwise. 

I hope they're right.  And I hope they discover something, just a glimmer, within my lifetime.  Maybe the universe (universes?) really was created as a playhouse exclusively for humans on earth.  Maybe we're all there is.  But, as I puzzled in an earlier post, if God created us as the sole sentient beings in his universe, didn't he leave an awful lot of unnecessary building material flying around in space? Wouldn't he have tidied things up a bit? 

But, I remind myself, if a Creator can create things ex nihilo, out of nothing, he has no need to economize.  Or if, as some contend, we are all characters in a software program (as Dilbert suggests, above), we can be made to see whatever the programmer wants us to see -- cheaply.  But let's not over-philosophize.  Let's keep our collective nose to the grindstone, and look for those little green men.

And maybe, some day, National Geographic can use the same cover again, and use it more legitimately.  Meanwhile, interesting article, and great photos.

White Mughals

Children of Kirkpatrick
and Khair, leaving for
England, ages 5 and 3

India, in its romantic and political aspects as well as its poverty, has always fascinated me.  In 1984, I watched the mini-series The Jewel in the Crown, which confirmed my understanding that the British Raj represented a clash of two civilizations -- East and West, and never the twain shall meet.  The series -- with its frequent scenes of British snobbery and contempt for "the locals" -- also reminded me that, romantic as the Raj might seem in hindsight, it was not for the most part a charitable effort to lift up the poor benighted souls of India.

Before my trip to Kashmir this month fell apart, I had begun reading William Dalrymple's White Mughals (2002).  This was the fourth book by Dalrymple that I've read and discussed in this blog, the others being In Xanadu, City of Djinns, and Nine Lives.  In White Mughals, a book resulting from the author's extensive research into previously unstudied letters and documents, and a book dense with facts and extensively footnoted, Dalrymple argues that before roughly 1800 the British were far more impressed by and respectful of Indian civilization than they became later.

It also became increasingly clear to me that the relationship between India and Britain was a symbiotic one.  Just as individual Britons in India could learn to appreciate and wish to emulate different aspects of Indian culture, and choose to take on Indian manners and languages, so many Indians at this period began to travel to Britain, intermarrying with the locals there and picking up Western ways.

Although White Mughals presents an in-depth study of Anglo-Indian relations in the decades immediately before and after 1800, the history is presented in the course of telling a story: the impressive and ultimately tragic career  of James Kirkpatrick, Resident (representative of the East India Company) in Hyderabad from 1798 to 1805. 

Until 1858, British interests  in India were asserted by the East India Company, a commercial trading company, headquartered in Calcutta.  During the eighteenth century, the Company had become increasingly aggressive in dealing with local rulers, developing its own private army, which by 1803 was twice as large as the entire British Army.  But although Calcutta and surrounding Bengal, as well as Madras and Bombay were under direct Company rule, the Company's power was exerted primarily through pressure on local rulers through the company's Residents.

Most of northern India was under the nominal control of the rapidly weakening Mughal Empire, centered in Delhi.  The Mughals were ethnic Turks, for the most part, but had largely adopted Persian as their language.  Hyderabad, a large landlocked region in south central India was ruled by a hereditary Mughal ruler called a Nizam, nominally representing the Mughal Emperor in Delhi, but in reality, by the time the book discusses, totally sovereign.

All of the above is easily learned from any reference book.  Dalrymple's genius is in making this period come alive -- the sounds, the smells, the personalities.  He knows when to devote a paragraph or so to a description of flowers in a palace garden, when that description brings the entire palace, the entire local experience alive in the reader's mind.

Dalrymple points out that the Company officers in India were far from home -- a six-month sail back to England.  Many had come to India as young teenagers. It was easy for them to "go native," and most did.  They adopted the dress, the manners, the food, the culture of a Persian-speaking Empire that was far more cultured than was England at the time.  The Company's Residents, such as Kirkpatrick, didn't consider themselves British imperial rulers, but ambassadors to the local rulers, company representatives whose job was to assist where possible and exert influence to protect the Company's interests when necessary.  Their mission wasn't to Anglicize the local people, but to cooperate with them.

Some Residents and other Company personnel converted to Islam, either out of conviction or out of convenience.  Many had their own harems of wives and concubines.  They lived well, and they lived as local people of their class lived.

James Kirkpatrick was such a man.  He and the Nizam became quite friendly.  Kirkpatrick quite easily adopted the habits and customs of the local people.  He spoke fluent Persian, as well as the local "Decanni Urdu" dialect and Hindi.  He became a "white Mughal."  He was well liked and respected by the local aristocracy.  He represented the Company well.

Kirkpatrick fell in love with a teenaged member of the local aristocracy, Khair un-Nissa, and his feelings were strongly reciprocated, according to Dalrymple.  Despite strong Muslim opposition to an upper class Muslim woman marrying a Christian, the two were privately married after Kirkpatrick formally converted to Islam.

Unfortunately for Kirkpatrick, during his Residency, a new Governor General arrived in Calcutta, Richard Wellesley.  Wellesley had no interest in local culture or in becoming close friends with local rulers.  He was rigid, "very British," and instinctively relied on force rather than finesse.  Kirkpatrick came to loathe him, and the feeling was mutual. Although some of Wellesley's successors were less Anglo-centric, his term as Governor General represented a turning point in the attitude of the East India Company, and of Britain itself later, toward the people of India.

The stage is thus set for the bulk of this rather lengthy but absorbing book.  Wellesley found it incomprehensible that one of his Residents had not only "gone native" to the extent Kirkpatrick had, but that he had stirred up scandal among the ruling classes of Hyderabad by his "relationship" or marriage (it was unclear to most whether a valid marriage had actually been celebrated).  Kirkpatrick, on his part, strongly opposed Wellesley's imperial approach to running the East India Company.  After most other "white Moghuls" had trimmed their sails to the prevailing winds, Kirkpatrick, either admirably or foolishly, remained the last thorn in Wellesley's side.

Politics.  Military affairs.  Personal rivalries.  Inter-cultural romance.  Quiet moments in Persian gardens.  What's not to like?  As in Dalrymple's other books, the story is so interesting that a vast amount of history goes down easily.

Not only careers were at stake, but lives as well, as the climate in India caused many British to die early deaths from local diseases.  White Mughals is a book in which almost no one dies happily in the end.  Including, of course, ultimately, the British Empire.

Kirkpatrick and Khair had two beautiful children, to whom both were strongly devoted.  At the ages of 5 and 3, however, they put the boy and girl on a boat to England, where they were to be educated.  Prejudice against Anglo-Indian children had become so intense in India, both legally and culturally, that only a life in a less bigoted (at the time) England made sense.  They had a painting done of the children, just before they sailed from Madras.  Neither father nor mother ever saw their children again.

Dalrymple ends his book on a note of hope, perhaps too optimistically, perhaps not.

Even today, despite all the progress that has been made, we still have rhetoric about "clashing civilizations," and almost daily generalizations in the press about East and West, Islam and Christianity, and the vast differences and fundamental gulfs that are said to separate the two  The white Mughals -- with their unexpected minglings and fusions, their hybridity, and above all their efforts at promoting tolerance and understanding -- attempted to bridge these two worlds, and to some extent they succeeded in doing so.

As the story of James Achilles Kirkpatrick and Khair un-Nissa shows, East and West are not irreconcilable, and never have been.  Only bigotry, prejudice, racism and fear drive them apart.  But they have met and mingled in the past; and they will do so again.

As the conflict between Hindus and Muslims has shown this week, hatreds based on ethnic differences are difficult to overcome.